Titled:   Early human bird flu death uncovered in China

A man died of H5N1 flu in Beijing in November 2003 - two full years before China admitted any human cases of H5N1. The death of the 24-year-old from bird flu came months before China even admitted H5N1 was circulating in its poultry.

Reminds me of a similar approach to the SARS outbreaks:

"THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT has not covered up. There is no need," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said last Tuesday in regard to the country's outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). "We have nothing to hide," assured Jianchao. But shortly afterwards, CNN's satellite feed to a Beijing block of expatriate apartments was cut off during a report on the disease.

What China claimed it was not covering up is a much higher incidence of SARS--a virus causing high fever, shortness of breath, and an estimated 4 percent death rate--than it had previously admitted. Two days after Jianchao's statement, Chinese authorities made a rapid about-face, revising numbers upward and admitting cases in provinces where they had previously denied any incidence of the disease. They also increased their cooperation with the World Health Organization, to which China belongs. As a result, a WHO team has finally been allowed access to Guangdong, where the disease apparently started.

Chinese President Hu Jintao travelled to the United States in April, largely to build trust:

"China believes mutual trust is lacking and that is at the root of tensions between the two countries, be it trade, military spending or human rights," said Tsinghua University analyst He Maochun.

I wonder why that mutual trust is lacking?